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**The Project Gutenberg Etext of Henry Clay's Remarks Before The
House and Senate of the United States of America Parts 1 and 2**
Part 1
Henry Clay, "On the Seminole War," U.S. House of Representatives
19 January 1819.
Part2
Henry Clay, "On the Expunging Resolutions," U.S. Senate
16 January 1837
December, 1996 [Etext #739]
**The Project Gutenberg Etext of Henry Clay's Remarks Before The
House and Senate of the United States of America Parts 1 and 2**
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Henry Clay, "On the Seminole War," U.S. House of Representatives
19 January 1819.
Henry Clay, "On the Expunging Resolutions," U.S. Senate
16 January 1837
Prepared by:
Anthony J. Adam
Part 1
Henry Clay, "On the Expunging Resolutions," U.S. Senate, 16
January 1837
Mr. President:
WHAT patriotic purpose is to be accomplished by this Expunging
resolution? What new honor or fresh laurels will it win for our
common country? Is the power of the Senate so vast that it ought to
be circumscribed, and that of the President so restricted that it ought
to be extended? What power has the Senate? None, separately. It can
only act jointly with the other House, or jointly with the Executive.
And although the theory of the Constitution supposes, when consulted
by him, it may freely give an affirmative or negative response,
according to the practice, as it now exists, it has lost the faculty of
pronouncing the negative monosylllable. When the Senate expresses
its deliberate judgment, in the form of resolution, that resolution has
no compulsory force, but appeals only to the dispassionate
intelligence, the calm reason, and the sober judgment, of the
community. The Senate has no army, no navy, no patronage, no
lucrative offices, no glittering honors, to bestow. Around us there is
no swarm of greedy expectants, rendering us homage, anticipating our
wishes, and ready to execute our commands.
How is it with the President? Is he powerless? He is felt from one
extremity to the other of this vast Republic. By means of principles
which he has introduced, and innovations which he has made in our
institutions, alas! but too much countenanced by Congress and a
confiding people, he exercises, uncontrolled, the power of the State.
In one hand he holds the purse, and in the other brandishes the sword
of the country. Myriads of dependants and partisans, scattered over
the land, are ever ready to sing hosannas to him, and to laud to the
skies whatever he does. He has swept over the government, during the
last eight years, like a tropical tornado. Every department exhibits
traces of the ravages of the storm. Take as one example the Bank of
the United States. No institution could have been more popular with
the people, with Congress, and with State Legislatures. None ever
better fulfilled the great purposes of its establishment. But it
unfortunately incurred the displeasure of the President; he spoke, and
the bank lies prostrate. And those who were loudest in its praise are
now loudest in its condemnation. What object of his ambition is
unsatisfied? When disabled from age any longer to hold the sceptre
of power, he designates his successor, and transmits it to his favorite!
What more does he want? Must we blot, deface, and mutilate the
records of the country, to punish the presumptuousness of expressing
an opinion contrary to his own?
What patriotic purpose is to be accomplished by this Expunging
resolution? Can you make that not to be which has been? Can you
eradicate from memory and from history the fact that in March, 1834,
a majority of the Senate of the United States passed the resolution
which excites your enmity? Is it your vain and wicked object to
arrogate to yourselves that power of annihilating the past which has
been denied to Omnipotence itself? Do you intend to thrust your
hands into our hearts, and to pluck out the deeply rooted convictions
which are there? Or is it your design merely to stigmatize us? You
cannot stigmatize us.
"Ne'er yet did base dishonor blur our name."
Standing securely upon our conscious rectitude, and bearing
aloft the shield of the Constitution of our country, your puny efforts are
impotent; and we defy all your power. Put the majority of 1834 in one
scale, and that by which this Expunging resolution is to be carried in
the other, and let truth and justice, in heaven above and on earth
below, and liberty and patriotism, decide the preponderance.
What patriotic purpose is to be accomplished by the
Expunging resolution? Is it to appease the wrath and to heal the
wounded pride of the Chief Magistrate? If he be really the hero that
his friends represent him, he must despise all mean condescension, all
grovelling sycophancy, all self-degradation and self-abasement. He
would reject, with scorn and contempt, as unworthy of his fame, your
black scratches and your baby lines in the fair records of his country.
Black lines! Black lines! Sir, I hope the Secretary of the Senate will
preserve the pen with which he may inscribe them, and present it to
that Senator of the majority whom he may select, as a proud trophy, to
be transmitted to his descendants. And hereafter, when we shall lose
the forms of our free institutions, all that now remain to us, some
future American monarch, in gratitude to those by whose means he
has been enabled, upon the ruins of civil liberty, to erect a throne, and
to commemorate especially this Expunging resolution, may institute
a new order of knighthood, and confer on it the appropriate name of
"the Knights of the Black Lines."
But why should I detain the Senate, or needlessly waste my
breath in fruitless exertions? The decree has gone forth. It is one of
urgency, too. The deed is to be done--that foul deed which, like the
blood, staining the hands of the guilty Macbeth, all ocean's waters
will never wash out. Proceed, then, to the noble work which lies
before you, and, like other skilful executioners, do it quickly. And
when you have perpetrated it, go home to the people, and tell them
what glorious honors you have achieved for our common country. Tell
them that you have extinguished one of the brightest and purest lights
that ever burned at the altar of civil liberty. Tell them that you have
silenced one of the noblest batteries that ever thundered in defence of
the Constitution, and bravely spiked the cannon. Tell them that,
henceforward, no matter what daring or outrageous act any president
may perform, you have forever hermetically sealed the mouth of the
Senate. Tell them that he may fearlessly assume what powers he
pleases, snatch from its lawful custody the public purse, command a
military detachment to enter the halls of the Capitol, overawe
Congress, trample down the Constitution, and raze every bulwark of
freedom; but that the Senate must stand mute, in silent submission,
and not dare to raise its opposing voice. Tell them that it must wait
until a House of Representatives, humbled and subdued like itself, and
a majority of it composed of the partisans of the President, shall prefer
articles of impeachment. Tell them, finally, that you have restored the
glorious doctrine of passive obedience and non-resistance. And, if the
people do not pour out their indignation and imprecations, I have yet
to learn the character of American freemen.
END OF PROJECT GUTENBERG ETEXT "ON THE EXPUNGING RESOLUTIONS" (CLAY)
***
Part 2
Henry Clay, "On the Seminole War," U.S. House of Representatives,
19 January 1819.
IF MY recollection does not deceive me, Bonaparte had passed
the Rhine and the Alps, had conquered Italy, the Netherlands, Holland,
Hanover, Lubec, and Hamburg, and extended his empire as far as
Altona, on the side of Denmark. A few days' march would have
carried him through Holstein, over the two Belts, through Funen, and
into the island of Zealand. What, then, was the conduct of England?
It was my lot to fall into conversation with an intelligent Englishman
on this subject. "We knew (said he) that we were fighting for our
existence. It was absolutely necessary that we should preserve the
command of the seas. If the fleet of Denmark fell into the enemy's
hands, combined with his other fleets, that command might be
rendered doubtful. Denmark had only a nominal independence. She
was, in truth, subject to his sway. We said to her, Give us your fleet;
it will otherwise be taken possession of by your secret and our open
enemy. We will preserve it and restore it to you whenever the danger
shall be over. Denmark refused. Copenhagen was bombarded, and
gallantly defended, but the fleet was seized." Everywhere the conduct
of England was censured; and the name even of the negotiator who
was employed by her, who was subsequently the minister near this
government, was scarcely ever pronounced here without coupling with
it an epithet indicating his participation in the disgraceful transaction.
And yet we are going to sanction acts of violence, committed by
ourselves, which but too much resemble it! What an important
difference, too, between the relative condition of England and of this
country! She, perhaps, was struggling for her existence. She was
combating, single-handed, the most enormous military power that the
world has ever known. With whom were we contending? With a few
half-starved, half-clothed, wretched Indians and fugitive slaves. And
while carrying on this inglorious war, inglorious as regards the laurels
or renown won in it, we violate neutral rights, which the government
had solemnly pledged itself to respect, upon the principle of
convenience, or upon the light presumption that, by possibility, a post
might be taken by this miserable combination of Indians and slaves....
I will not trespass much longer upon the time of the committee;
but I trust I shall be indulged with some few reflections upon the
danger of permitting the conduct on which it has been my painful duty
to animadvert, to pass without the solemn expression of the
disapprobation of this House. Recall to your recollection the free
nations which have gone before us. Where are they now?
"Gone glimmering through the dream of things that were,
A schoolboy's tale, the wonder of an hour."
And how have they lost their liberties? If we could transport
ourselves back to the ages when Greece and Rome flourished in their
greatest prosperity, and, mingling in the throng, should ask a Grecian
if he did not fear that some daring military chieftain, covered with
glory, some Philip or Alexander, would one day overthrow the liberties
of his country, the confident and indignant Grecian would exclaim,
No! no! we have nothing to fear from our heroes; our liberties will be
eternal. If a Roman citizen had been asked if he did not fear that the
conqueror of Gaul might establish a throne upon the ruins of public
liberty, he would have instantly repelled the unjust insinuation. yet
Greece fell; Caesar passed the Rubicon, and the patriotic arm even of
Brutus could not preserve the liberties of his devoted country! The
celebrated Madame de Stael, in her last and perhaps her best work,
has said, that in the very year, almost the very month, when the
president of the Directory declared that monarchy would never more
show its frightful head in France, Bonaparte, with his grenadiers,
entered the palace of St. Cloud, and, dispersing with the bayonet the
deputies of the people deliberating on the affairs of the State, laid the
foundation of that vast fabric of despotism which overshadowed all
Europe. I hope not to be misunderstood; I am far from intimating that
General Jackson cherishes any designs inimical to the liberties of the
country. I believe his intentions to be pure and patriotic. I thank God
that he would not, but I thank him still more that he could not if he
would, overturn the liberties of the Republic. But precedents, if bad,
are fraught with the most dangerous consequences. Man has been
described, by some of those who have treated of his nature, as a bundle
of habits. The definition is much truer when applied to governments.
Precedents are their habits. There is one important difference between
the formation of habits by an individual and by governments. He
contracts only after frequent repetition. A single instance fixes the
habit and determines the direction of governments. Against the
alarming doctrine of unlimited discretion in our military commanders
when applied even to prisoners of war, I must enter my protest. It
begins upon them; it will end on us. I hope our happy form of
government is to be perpetual. But, if it is to be preserved, it must be
by the practice of virtue, by justice, by moderation, by magnanimity,
by greatness of soul, by keeping a watchful and steady eye on the
Executive; and, above all, by holding to a strict accountability the
military branch of the public force.
We are fighting a great moral battle for the benefit not only of
our country, but of all mankind. The eyes of the whole world are in
fixed attention upon us. One, and the larger portion of it, is gazing
with contempt, with jealousy, and with envy; the other portion, with
hope, with confidence, and with affection. Everywhere the black cloud
of legitimacy is suspended over the world, save only one bright spot,
which breaks out from the political hemisphere of the West, to
enlighten and animate and gladden the human heart. Obscure that by
the downfall of liberty here, and all mankind are enshrouded in a pall
of universal darkness. To you, Mr. Chairman, belongs the high
privilege of transmitting, unimpaired, to posterity the fair character and
liberty of our country. Do you expect to execute this high trust by
trampling, or suffering to be trampled down, law, justice, the
Constitution, and the rights of the people? by exhibiting examples of
inhumanity and cruelty and ambition? When the minions of despotism
heard, in Europe, of the seizure of Pensacola, how did they chuckle,
and chide the admirers of our institutions, tauntingly pointing to the
demonstration of a spirit of injustice and aggrandizement made by our
country, in the midst of an amicable negotiation! Behold, said they,
the conduct of those who are constantly reproaching kings! You saw
how those admirers were astounded and hung their heads. you saw,
too, when that illustrious man, who presides over us, adopted his
pacific, moderate, and just course, how they once more lifted up their
heads with exultation and delight beaming in their countenances. And
you saw how those minions themselves were finally compelled to unite
in the general praises bestowed upon our government. Beware how
you forfeit this exalted character. Beware how you give a fatal
sanction, in this infant period of our Republic, scarcely yet twoscore
years old, to military insubordination. Remember that Greece had her
Alexander, Rome her Caesar, England her Cromwell, France her
Bonaparte, and that if we would escape the rock on which they split
we must avoid their errors.
How different has been the treatment of General Jackson and
that modest, but heroic young man, a native of one of the smallest
States in the Union, who achieved for his country, on Lake Erie, one
of the most glorious victories of the late war. In a moment of passion
he forgot himself and offered an act of violence which was repented of
as soon as perpetrated. He was tried, and suffered the judgment to be
pronounced by his peers. Public justice was thought not even then to
be satisfied. The press and Congress took up the subject. My
honorable friend from Virginia, Mr. Johnson, the faithful and
consistent sentinel of the law and of the Constitution, disapproved in
that instance, as he does in this, and moved an inquiry. The public
mind remained agitated and unappeased until the recent atonement, so
honorably made by the gallant commodore. And is there to be a
distinction between the officers of the two branches of the public
service? Are former services, however eminent, to preclude even
inquiry into recent misconduct? Is there to be no limit, no prudential
bounds to the national gratitude? I am not disposed to censure the
President for not ordering a court of inquiry, or a general court-martial.
Perhaps, impelled by a sense of gratitude, he determined, by
anticipation, to extend to the general that pardon which he had the
undoubted right to grant after sentence. Let us not shrink from our
duty. Let us assert our constitutional powers, and vindicate the
instrument from military violation.
I hope gentlemen will deliberately survey the awful isthmus on
which we stand. They may bear down all opposition; they may even
vote the general the public thanks; they may carry him triumphantly
through this House. But, if they do, in my humble judgment, it will be
a triumph of the principle of insubordination, a triumph of the military
over the civil authority, a triumph over the powers of this House, a
triumph over the Constitution of the land. And I pray most devoutly
to Heaven that it may not prove, in its ultimate effects and
consequences, a triumph over the liberties of the people.
END OF PROJECT GUTENBERG ETEXT "ON THE SEMINOLE WAR"
End of
The Project Gutenberg Etext of Henry Clay's Remarks Before The
House and Senate of the United States of America Parts 1 and 2